How to Turn the Eiffel Tower Into a High Jewelry Necklace
I once spent hours roaming the Arms and Armor gallery at the Met to write a story on a Louis Vuitton high jewelry collection created by Francesca Amfitheatrof. This time I braved the Musée d’Orsay on a Sunday. Amfitheatrof’s narrative-driven work inspires research. Each piece, like the d’Orsay on weekends, contains multitudes.
The theme of Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds, her sixth high jewelry collection for Louis Vuitton, is 19th-century France. “It was a time of incredible change,” Amfitheatrof says, “and when Paris really became the center of the world. The design language of the collection reflects that—all its intricacies, complications, and innovations, turned into incredible jewels.” In case you need an AP European History refresher, here are a few things that happened: the end of royal court rule. Impressionism, Haussmann, the Paris Opera, photography, the Eiffel Tower, Monet, Manet, Seurat, Cézanne. Any questions?
I find myself on the fifth floor of the museum, itself a testament to the buzz of those years, standing in front of Monet’s Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). Monet’s experiments with light are evident in the painting, and a haze of smoke rendered in blue and pink and violet hangs over the metal and glass structure housing the locomotives. Paris is visible in the background. The painting was the topic of much discussion at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877. Was there too much smoke? Should the trains be more visible? What did it all mean?
Critics and visitors could not foresee that the same station, built a few years earlier, would end up the inspiration for a high jewelry necklace more than a century later. Its name is Vision, and it is made from yellow gold, platinum, diamonds, and yellow sapphires. Amfitheatrof acknowledges the hold railroads have long had on creative imaginations and explains that “the whole necklace is held together by yellow gold rivets so as to feel like a second skin.” Why shouldn’t train stations—hubs of modernity and movement—move a designer to sketch, as they have so many artists before her?
The collection, the most comprehensive Amfitheatrof has created in her time at Vuitton, comprises 220 pieces. They are unapologetically intricate and architectural, visibly connected to the era that inspired them, when, as Amfitheatrof says, “craftsmanship became the currency of the country.” They are grouped by theme: Splendeur explores the intricate woodwork of an imperial bed in a necklace of carved gold flowers and 52 rubies. Séduction considers innovation in textiles and passementerie through a supple necklace and ropelike fringing in platinum, yellow gold, and a 12-carat emerald. The final of the themes is, fittingly, Apotheosis. At the center of it is a necklace with a 56-carat diamond called the Coeur de Paris. The Eiffel Tower was unveiled in 1889. “Imagine you are standing underneath the Tour Eiffel and looking up,” says the designer. “You’re really looking up at the heart of Paris.” And now, with a necklace to match.
The narratives behind Amfitheatrof’s collections have become as much a signature as her ability to integrate Vuitton’s symbols and motifs into the cut of stones and the pattern of precious metals. Like all great odysseys, its value is centered in both journey and final, glittering destination.
Lead Image: Louis Vuitton’s new high jewelry collection, titled Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds, celebrates the artistic and scientific achievements of 19th-century France. Louis Vuitton High Jewelry Phenomenal necklace and watch.
This story appears in the November 2024 issue of Town & Country SUBSCRIBE NOW
You Might Also Like
